Bruce's Solo Discography Ranked - The Complete List

For me, the album opening is basically something like this:

Freak: The opening riff is weird but works, and then it just barrels into a real headbanger.
Toltec 7 Arrival: Kinda weird break from the metalness.
Starchildren: I like both Freak and Starchildren, but once the latter song kicks on you forget what you just finished hearing and start living in the present.

All three of these kick off the album equally, only in stages.
 
Tomorrow marks one week that this thread has been in existence. The response has exceeded anything I could have wished for when I first came up with the idea to do this. We've gone through seven pages already - this is the 126th post - of discussion over Bruce's solo career and there are more and more each day. I'm quite happy about that!

The voting has definitely slowed down at this point, but there are still a few trickling in. The Chemical Wedding has taken the bulk of them, with 21 poll responses as of yet. The albums poll has the least, with only 15. I hope that by the end of the voting stage to have at least thirty, but even more would be awesome. Still, there's enough here already to compose an excellent list, and that's what I'm sure we'll be getting out of all of this.

Here's to the next... three weeks or so. This thread has been very fun thus far and I only hope it can keep that by the time the doors shut and the real fun begins - the actual list is compiled and released to the public.

So thanks, guys. :)
 
Funnily enough, I was just about to come here and say that I forgot to rank Balls To Picasso and Tattooed Millionaire. Will come around to do it some time next week.
 
I’ll try to rank them all before the end of the next week, although I’m not completely sure I’ll make it. Anyway,

Tattoed Millionaire
Son of a Gun 10
Tattoed Millionaire 9
Born in ‘58 8
Hell on Wheels 8
Gypsy Road 8
Dive! Dive! Dive! 5
All the Young Dudes 7
Lickin the Gun 4
Zulu Lulu 5
No Lies 6

Average: 7.0

Starts off great, but then drops significantly in quality. In particular, the first 5 tracks are all very good. However, it’s way too silly from Dive! onwards and it doesn’t really have any highlights since then. All things considered, it’s a decent album, but it could have easily been better, which is always annoying to think.

Bonus tracks:

BYD…TTS 5
Ballad of Mutt 5
Winds of Change 7
Darkness Be My Friend 6

Nothing too incredible here. The Maiden version of BYD…TTS is much much better, especially on the vocals, which is quite weird in my opinion. I haven’t got much to say about the other songs.
 
Sorry Diesel for not having contributed but I find it hard to think of correct ratings for all songs. I do know which are my favourite Bruce songs though (lot of 10s and 9s), but only voting for these feels a bit incorrect, if I'm not doing the others.

It's different for Maiden. That was a process that took years.
 
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Yeah, it wasn't easy. Truthfully, only Tattooed Millionaire I don't like. Solo Dickinson for me is more consistent than Maiden. Only debut is meh, the rest five albums are ranging from excellent to "never heard shit like this in my entire life", "11/10", etc. BTP would be universally acclaimed like the other two albums with Tribe, if it were produced by Roy Z. For instance, I would never hesitate giving 1000 Points of light a 10/10 if that metal song had a proper metal production. Imagine that verse riff with the full low end oomph and pinch harmonics flying out. The transition between calm piece into distortion again, if it had full dynamic range, clean guitar just building into a distorted wall of sound would be immense. Now I can only imagine how it should've sounded like.

My rather wide median for Skunkworks is 8; some are 7s but Strange Death is a 10. I can't directly compare songs like Inertia and Freak that easily, but I can try adding a "good in a particular" style point of view. To put things in simple terms, Book Of Thel is one of the best metal songs I've heard in my entire life of being a metalhead, while Intertia is not in my bucket of best alternative / modern hard rock songs I've heard while not even being in that subculture. Great song nonetheless.

With the last three situation becomes absurd as their average score will be between 9.x and 9.y.
 
Zare said:
Solo Dickinson for me is more consistent than Maiden.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I completely agree. I might've said it before, but after Ahab (every album is a 10/10), solo Bruce is the most consistent artist I've ever heard - every album is a 9/10 or higher. Excellent stuff.
 
Balls to Picasso
Cyclops 9
Hell No 7
Gods of War 8
1000 Points of Light 7
Laughing in the Hiding Bush 7
Change of Heart 7
Shoot All the Clowns 7
Fire 6
Sacred Cowboys 6
Tears of the Dragon 10

Average: 7.4

More consistent and overall better than the previous album. There’s some pretty strange stuff here, like the spoken part on Sacred Cowboys, but I would say everything has its own place. Bruce’s voice’s versatility is clearly shown, from the aggressive tone of Laughing in the Hiding Bush to the sweet Tears of the Dragon. The latter is most definitely one of Bruce’s best songs, both of his solo career and overall.
Regarding the album, I think it’s missing is some highlights in the middle, but it’s still good.

Bonus tracks:
Fire Child 6
Elvis Has Left the Building 4
The Breeding House 7
No Way Out… To Be Continued 6
Over and Out 5
The Post Alternative Seattle Fall Out 3
Tibet 4
Cadillac Gas Mask 3
No Way Out… Continued 5

The bonus tracks are a very diverse mix of songs. The Breeding House is the deepest and best, the others aren’t that great.
 
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